Drifting spouses, right?. It’s seen that the initial days of marriage are the most exciting as these are the days one gets to know his or her spouse more closely& understand them better.
The focus entirely is to keep the relationship enriched. Both the partners have to take an active interest in pleasing each other and making the other person happy. When you don’t take initiative in love, both of you may start to take each other for granted, then the relationship would start to stagnate. Communication is one of the most important factor. What ever the reason, spouses should not reduce the level of communication with each other. less communication will lead to a lesser understanding and thus can lead to slowly drifting away from one another.
This is often how drifting spouses first begin to lose their initial connection. The drift may not be because of lack of love, but because of not being open and vocal in communicating and expressing their feelings. Your partner may feel that he/she is communicating with you. And you, on the other hand, feel that your partner can never understand you. Can a relationship ever work when such confusions play out every single day? After the infatuation period.
If you start to believe that both of you have nothing in common, you’ll only feel worse over time. When couples stop trying to find common ground, they risk becoming drifting spouses who live parallel lives. Also many couples have drifted away from each other because of their ego. They do not realize that ego plays a bigger part than the relationship itself. When pride takes over, drifting spouses will find it harder and harder to bridge the emotional gap. what’s seen is after the first few days/months in marriage the couple starts getting busy in their daily schedule. The same chores, routine, work starts taking most of the time and as a result the spouses hardly get any time with each other.
Here they need to try and take time out for being together. One needs to set their priorities right. ( spouse cannot be low in the list) Without intentional quality time, normal routines can accidentally turn a happy couple into drifting spouses. Another common problem which many spouses complain of is indifference. It happens that spouses are not bothered as to what the other spouse is doing. If you are not showing interest in each other, then you are no longer engaging as a couple. You are indifferent and are drifting apart. Indifference is a major warning sign that drifting spouses are losing touch with each other’s lives. Many people keep secrets from their spouses. I find this strange. The fact that you have planned to spend a life time with some one makes him/her your best friend.. So please- Keep no more secrets, as hidden lives only cause drifting spouses to feel more isolated.
Lastly I would say that one should not be overly critical. Some sort of criticism is needed and accepted for any person to improve and be a better person. But when the criticism gets too much it shows that the other person is no more in love with his/her spouse as he has only criticism to offer, no compliments. So, be critical when needed but at the same time be magnanimous while showering compliments. Do discuss about your day with your spouse at the end of the day.
These are little things that don’t seem much, but they play a big role in holding a relationship together and preventing the reality of drifting spouses. Keeping the marriage intact is a joint effort, which needs to be ensured by both the spouses, ultimately ensuring a vibrant relationship.
